IU ZeZe + Knees + Red Queen Showcase Live Reaction (THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!)

I kind agree it is mystery. The reason (to make it short, I don’t use the article form): 1.She is young and born after authoritarian age. 2.She likes to reading, She must understand the evolution of civilization.Especialy the literalist DiDi’s Deconstructive theory: decentralized, to guestion the authority and to ad extra meanings of dualism of art structure. 3. The beautiful goodness of her warm personality. Therefore I feel she is using the dual contradictions to emphasis the uncertainty of reality vs fantasy and more than that is to evoke and question it. It seems to me she is not to going to give a solid answer to match the main theme of 23-nothing is for sure.(that happens to be the majority thought of new era). She is such an artist who always provides a weak hint to inspire the discuss of public and herself. I agree with Elv’re , it’s mystry in a kind way behind.

sanming yeh

For me, I think the mystery makes more sense. From what I know of IU, I think she's more of the type to talk from a general point of view. But I totally get your frustration at not being able to understand Korean right away 😅.

Elv're

I would suggest perhaps starting with Modern Times: it's a jazzy album. But more importantly it marks the divide between IU as singer (and other folks writing lyrics for her) and her moving out to write her own lyrics/compositions. The album came out in 2013. IU wrote about 1/3 of the songs on Modern Times: but still it represented the move away from depending on others to create songs for her, plus it represents a move away from the cute girly songs she was largely singing before then. One of the songs on that album, Bad Day, also nicely moves forward from her previous work like Good Day. But I'm not convinced you need to go from old to new songs. It might be just as interesting to do the journey the other way: from new towards old.

Mathew

Yesss I would suggest going on albums/songs chronologically as there are songs of IU that are somehow related to one another. For example, You&I and Above the Time. You must watch You&I first as Above the Time is a continuation of that song 8 years after You&I was released. It's sooo mindblowing that a korean yt channel (DKDKTV) made a video explaining the connection between the two because there's soooo much more that meets the eye.

Jaymee Red

**chat-shire 2015 :)

ABC

I'm down for full album analysis in chronological order! The more content, the merrier lol. I do think Chat-shire (2016) is a great place to start because this was her first self-produced album, when she really took full control of her music so it's more fun to analyze. Although there are some songs from earlier albums also written by her (most notably Peach, Bad Day, Love of B, Voicemail), I think it would be best if you could just sprinkle them in between. Coz if you plan to go through each songs from all her albums (we're talking about 100+ songs here), it would reallyyyy take a while 🤣 With that said, I propose you check out the title songs first (w/ B-Sides in between from earlier albums) starting from debut just so you can compare & see her evolution: - Lost Child (2008) - Boo, You Know (Growing Up, 2008) - Marshmallow (IU.. I'M, 2009) - Nagging, Good day (Real, 2010) - The Story Only I Didn't Know (Real+, 2011) - Peach (Spring of a Twenty Year Old, 2012) - You & I (Last Fantasy, 2012) - The Red Shoes (Modern Times, 2013) * A Flower Bookmark (2014, this is a remake album with songs from 80s - 90s. It could be fun to compare the original to her version) * Chat-shire (2016) * Palette (2017) * A Flower Bookmark 2 (2017, remake album of songs from 60s - 2000s) * Love Poem (2019) * Lilac (2021) I really love your thoughts so I'm excited to hear more in your podcast!

Jazymine Latham

Chat-Shire is my IU's favorite album. I think it is IU's version of "A portrait of the artist as a young woman," something like that. When this album was released, there was so much hate against it that still makes me sad. Not because she did something wrong but because some mean people didn't want to accept her honest lyrics and thoughts. It was a hot topic for a few days, and everyone talked about her lyrics-really everyone, including politicians, publishers, writers, activists, haters, and fans. I think that gave this album more meaning. Thanks! I enjoy your thoughts and comments💜💙💕

For uaena, chat-shire her 4th mini album, is always precious…. The period of chat-shire was very hard for her. You can google it if you do not know what happen at that time. This was her first self produce album, you can see how excited she was during showcase …but I really thanks those mean people at that time. I also feel gratitude that IU can go through and learn during this period of time. I love your reaction, you can understand what she wanna to express, thanks for reacting this showcase.

mlmlml

First thing first, here’s the 1080p version of Red Queen from her Love Poem concert https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iqYSB2WJ6ZtdhJYO4HcmTj8_Y-Dfg9mT/view?usp=sharing I’ve always heard Koreans say that the beauty of IU's lyrics got lost so much in translations or even the best translation can't give her lyrics justice. So I felt deprived too when I can't fully understand the meaning of her lyrics. Even so, the fact that the translations are enough to fascinate me, really shows how good her lyrics are. About the Red Queen lyrics, I'm not sure but after reading the lyrics as a whole, I'm leaning more towards your second interpretation. Knees is my all time favorite IU's song. The lyrics of this song truly touched my soul. I left a comment a few videos ago talking about the honesty and vulnerability in her music, Knees is the best example of it. IU herself said several times after she passed away(which is many years later of course), this is one of the songs that she wants people to remember about her. There is a special clip of this song also, hope you will check it out https://youtu.be/L1JUfCyeT5E I personally love the songs that she wrote or composed the most. That being said, there are still many goods songs in the early days of her career. So I'm in if you want to go through all her albums in chronological order :)) Lastly, I love that you are willing to check out the showcase events (not many reactors do) because you can get to know what are her thoughts when she was making those songs. I really hope you could done more of these in the future.

kenix

Each of her albums has its own theme, such as L OVE POEM whose theme is love -- from self-love to the love between people. Since she started producing her own albums in 2015, she has been able to put more of her own ideas into her albums, writing lyrics for almost every song. About her lyrics, the age series is the most representative, like 23- I don't know myself very well, palette25- I know myself a little bit better now. It’s really fun to know her better from her lyrics!!

PUPU

UPU I really love your reaction!! And yeah full album pleasssse!

PUPU